Publisher Description
A tale of Gilded Age corruption and greed from the frontier of Alaska to America’s capital.
In the feverish, money-making age of railroad barons, political machines, and gold rushes, corruption was the rule, not the exception. Yet the Republican mogul “Big Alex” McKenzie defied even the era’s standard for avarice. Charismatic and shameless, he arrived in the new Alaskan territory intent on controlling gold mines and draining them of their ore. Miners who had rushed to the frozen tundra to strike gold were appalled at his unabashed deviousness.
A Most Wicked Conspiracy recounts McKenzie’s plot to rob the gold fields. It’s a story of how America’s political and economic life was in the grip of domineering, self-dealing, seemingly-untouchable party bosses in cahoots with robber barons, Senators and even Presidents. Yet it is also the tale of a righteous resistance of working-class miners, muckraking journalists, and courageous judges who fought to expose a conspiracy and reassert the rule of law.
Through a bold set of characters and a captivating narrative, Paul Starobin examines power and rampant corruption during a pivotal time in America, drawing undoubted parallels with present-day politics and society.
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Most stories labeled unknown are quite well known, but Paul Starobin bares an audacious and largely forgotten swindle that implicated prominent politicians, corporate leaders, and handpicked judges in an attempt to rob ordinary Alaskan miners of the fruits of their labor. An intriguing and well-told tale of avarice and greed that reveals how corrupt American business and government were in the Gilded Age.
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Richard White, Emeritus Professor of American History at Stanford University and author of The Republic for Which It Stands – The United States during Reconstruction and the Gilded Age, 1865-1896Â
